Is this normal?

[xbeardwood]

So this is my first time owning a hamster and we've only had her a couple of weeks. She's an approximately 2 month old female Syrian hamster.
She's been biting the cage a lot, and constantly wants out, but isn't taking to her ball at all. Whenever I put her in it she moves around a bit, but doesn't really run in it. She hasn't used her wheel at all yet either. Whenever I try to hold her, she runs all over my arms. She's so hyper
Is this normal? Is there anything that I can do to entertain her?

[Shannonmcn]

Yep, everything there is absolutely normal. Syrian girls are know for being more active or hyper than the boys, and the babies even more so! It's not a bad thing, you just have to work with her. It's part of why I love having girls.

A lot of hams don't take to balls. They rely mostly on smell to get around as their eyesight isn't great and a ball usually takes away more of their visibility while blocking scents and smells they would use to navigate. A lot of them pee or poop in the ball also so they're running in that and then you get to "how do you know when they want to stop?" and their feet can get caught in the slits and ugh

Balls are a mess. If she isn't loving it, stop using it. You can do play pen time using the bath (safe and secure, sit in there with her and get acquainted) or make your own playpen out of cardboard boxes or buy a children's ball-pit or let her free roam in a safe room! No need for a ball at all!

Bar biting is a stress behaviour. It's usually caused by boredom, not having a large enough cage or not enough fun things to do inside the cage. If you post a pic of your setup we can get you going on making it as fun as possible for her. Just a head's up, since you are a first time hamster owner, if you got your cage from a pet shop you can almost guarantee it's going to be too small. Try not to take offense at people telling you that, we have all done the same thing. You're here for advice so just be aware the advice might be to get her an upgrade

Welcome to the forum! Also post pics of ham, love seeing hams, as you might have guessed.

[Pebbles82]

What Shannon said Zooplus have very good hamster cages, reasonably priced and suitable with free delivery. The Alaska, Barney and Alexander cages are popular. Assuming you don't already have a good sized cage! If the cage is the issue then some people have been successful at returning one for a refund citing it being unsuitable for a syrian hamster - after buying a new one, even though the original one has been used. Alternatively it can be handy to have a "play cage" or somewhere to put the hamster when you do a clean out etc.

It may also be that the wheel isn't big enough which is another common issue - if it's smaller than 8" diameter it is too small and could be causing back pain or just be too difficult to run in so she isn't getting enough exercise and will be going crazy. Most people opt for an 11" wheel which is a good size for Syrian and they can run easily in it. The trixie 28cm wheel is popular and not expensive.

https://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/small.../hamster_cages